


When I feel down, I want you above me

by lanyon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Phone Sex, The Winter Soldier - Freeform, Unadulterated silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the twenty-first century, Steve Rogers still has inordinate difficult talking to women, or men, or anyone with a pretty face. Tony Stark suggests that he try calling a phone sex line. Under the influence of severe exhaustion, he does just that. He has no explanation for why he keeps calling, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I feel down, I want you above me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beardsley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beardsley/gifts).



“Maybe,” says Tony, uncharacteristically hesitant. “You should practice.”

“Practice what, exactly?” Steve looks faintly unhappy. 

“Talking to, you know, people you fancy.”

“People?”

“I don’t want to assume anything is all. Men. Women. You know. _People._ ” Tony takes something out of his wallet. A card. He pushes it towards Steve with his fingertips. “There are, you know. _People_. Who can help with that.”

Steve picks up the card. “Tony.”

“Yes?”

“ _Tony._ ”

“Steve.”

“This is a number for phone sex.” 

Tony looks impressed, embarrassed and surprised, all in one. 

“ _Yes_ , Tony, I know what phone sex lines are. I watch late night television.”

“Well. Why don’t you? You know. Call them? Maybe not having to make eye contact will help.”

.

Steve dials the first few digits and then he stops. His fingers are shaking. He hasn’t trembled like this since his last asthma attack, over seventy years ago. He can imagine his throat closing up, unable to force air out.

.

“Social phobia is no laughing matter,” says a SHIELD psychologist sternly. 

Steve, well. Steve is a man. He has needs. He blushes and says, “yes, ma’am.”

.

“Have you called them yet?” asks Tony. To give him some credit, it’s a whole three days since he gave Steve the card. 

“No, I - I tried.” 

“Oh, god, Rogers. Do you want me to dial the number for you? I will, I swear to God, I will.”

.

Steve wishes he could get drunk. He could probably dial the number then. He doesn’t want to suggest this to Tony because the last time Tony tried to brew something of sufficient proof, Thor ended up on his ass and there was a real worry that an Asgardian-grade liver transplant might be in order.

.

He dials four digits, the next night, before ending the call.

.

Steve isn’t a prude. It’s a common misconception. He was brought up in the twenties and thirties, though, and people didn’t talk about sex to children and all he ever learned came from the whispers in the orphanage dormitory at night and then from whatever stories Bucky brought home from the factories and docks where he went every day to scare up some work. 

.

It’s not inebriation that makes Steve call, in the end. It’s bone-deep weariness, after thirty-six hours of fighting off sludge-monsters that rose and rose and rose from the Hudson. He doesn’t even know who’s responsible for them but he’s past caring. 

He showers, standing under the hot water, and he dries himself off and he pulls on soft sleep-pants and he crawls into bed. He fumbles for his phone, meaning to switch the damn thing to silent, but there’s the card and, oh, to hear a voice of someone who will not immediately snap to attention or who won’t look at him sympathetically, like he’s got one foot in the grave and one foot in the care home. 

His vision’s a bit blurred when he dials the number and he curls his fingers around the card, the laminated plastic digging into his skin. He doesn’t even jump when someone answers the phone after two rings.

“You’ve called one-eight-hundred red-hot-nights. May I have your credit card details?”

“Oh, I-” Steve fumbles for his wallet. “Is V-Visa okay?” 

“Absolutely, sir,” says the voice, smooth and roughly masculine and perhaps a little amused.

Steve rattles off the number of the elite credit card that SHIELD issued him with and he refuses to be embarrassed by this. It’s therapeutic, maybe. Odds are no one will believe that Captain America knowingly dialled a phone sex line, anyway. 

“And may I confirm that you are over eighteen?” There is a trace of an accent to the voice, though it is largely American.

Steve’s laugh is somewhat strangled. “Uh. Yes. Uhm. Well over eighteen.” 

“What’s your date of birth?” 

“Oh! Right. Fourth of July, Nineteen Eighteen”

There is a pause. “Okay. No need to be funny, pal.”

“Sorry, I. I’ve never done this before.”

“No kidding. So.” The voice drops a little. It gets rougher, if that’s possible. “You know what you like?”

Steve’s mind is blank. He’s too tired to blush, amidst all the misfiring synapses. “I’d like. I’d like to talk.”

“That’s what I’m here for, big boy. Want to know what I’m wearing?”

Steve sighs softly. “Sure?”

The voice purrs. “Well, the super never came to fix our boiler so it’s a hundred degrees in here and I’m right down to my silk boxers. You ever wear silk, big boy?”

“Oh god,” says Steve. “Stop, please stop. Just. Uhm. What’s your name?”

There’s silence. Steve wonders if he’s insulted the voice or whether he really is just that bad at talking to people. There’s a soft laugh, though.

“My name is Yakov,” he says. “And you really are new at this, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” says Steve, feeling rather penitent. “My friend said I should try calling-”

“No good with men, huh?”

“Something like that,” says Steve, in a rush. “No good with a pretty face. That’s what my friend says.”

“How do you know I have a pretty face?”

Steve blinks. “You just. You sound like- you sound nice.”

Yakov laughs. “You’re very kind to say that. You want to tell me your name, big boy?”

Steve wants to ask why Yakov thinks he’s big but maybe it’s the same as Steve thinking, or knowing, that Yakov is good-looking. There are a million reasons why Steve should give a fake name and most of them begin and end with ‘national security’. 

“Steve,” he blurts out. “My name is Steve.’

“Well, Steve. You want to talk about the weather some or will we get back to business?” Yakov might be laughing at him. Steve’s not sure but he feels like laughing too. “It was pretty wet today,” says Yakov.

“It really was,” says Steve, thinking of all the mud by the Hudson and then he blushes. “Oh-” He bites his lower lip. “Are you really only wearing boxers?” he asks, shy again.

“What do you think, Steve?”

“Probably not,” says Steve. “I’m wearing sleep pants.”

“Are you really?” 

Steve can hear that Yakov is smiling now. “Yes,” he says, quietly. “They’re not silk, though. They’re just cotton. Nothing special.”

“I’d say you’re something special, Steve,” says Yakov. “I think I’d like to get to know you a bit and maybe you could get to know me?”

“Sure,” says Steve and there’s a shakiness in his voice that has nothing to do with tiredness. 

“I think maybe you need to unwind a bit. What do you say?”

“That sounds good,” whispers Steve. 

“You ever talk dirty to someone before, Steve?”

“No.” Steve never thought that was a lack, until now.

“That’s okay. That’s why you called me, right? Are you any good at taking orders?”

Steve blushes crimson. “You - you could say that.” He wants to say he’s better at giving them but this is not a familiar field of battle.

“That’s good. That’s so good, Steve. What I want you to do is exactly what I’m doing. I want you to lick your palm.” 

Steve presses the phone between his ear and his shoulder to free up his hands and he jumps at the cacophony of dial tones as he presses all the keys at once. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry.”

Yakov laughs and it’s slow and honey in Steve’s ear. “That’s okay, big boy. I’m going to wrap my hand around my cock. I’m gonna imagine it’s yours, squeezing just tight enough-”

Steve drops the phone. It disappears in the mound of sheets and bedclothes that adorn virtually every bed in Stark Tower. “Oh god,” he says as he scrabbles around to find it again. “I am so sorry,” he says when he locates it again and holds it to his ear. “I am really bad at this.”

“I’ve had worse,” says Yakov and he sounds almost fond. “I really have. At least you’re polite about it. I guess you were brought up right, Steve, huh?”

“You could say that,” says Steve. 

“You wanna try again?”

Steve blushes. “I think. I think maybe I’ve had enough, uh, embarrassment for one night,” he says. “I’m kind of tired.”

“Well, how about you call back when you’re less tired? I ain’t going nowhere.” 

.

“Did you call?”

“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”

.

For a city, New York gets itself into mortal danger on an alarmingly regular basis. There are doombots and them some weird airborne sleeping sickness that affects everyone but Steve and Thor and the Hulk, none of whom had the scientific experience necessary to solve the crisis. Once Hank reached a particular size, though, the gas didn’t seem to trouble him.

Steve is exhausted when he gets home. 

He dials the number.

.

“Long day?”

“Something like that.” Steve’s so tired that his words are slurring together. Everyone else has been sleeping while he’s been awake. This seems like a fair trade. 

“You know you could call the speaking clock, if you just need to hear a voice? I’m guessing you’re not up to much tonight.”

“I like _your_ voice,” says Steve, petulant and comfortable. “Tell me about your day.”

“I don’t think you get how this thing works, buddy,” says Yakov. “But okay. Makes a change from the usual moaners. And screamers. And criers.”

“Oh _god_ ,” says Steve. “I take it back. Don’t tell me about your day. Tell me about anything else. Where are you from?”

There’s a pause and, once more, Steve wonders if he’s broken phone sex etiquette. Personal questions and no actual sex.

“I’m from St Petersburg,” says Yakov, quietly. “My father owned a shop off Nevsky Prospect.”

St Petersburg, thinks Steve. It used to be Leningrad. He falls asleep to the sound of Yakov’s voice. 

.

“My god, Rogers, you made eye contact with that woman and nobody swooned.” Tony’s grinning ear to ear. “I’m, like, the best therapist there is.”

“ _Tony_ ,” says Pepper. “Unlike nuclear physics, you can’t teach yourself therapy techniques overnight.”

“Don’t see why not,” says Tony. 

.

“You’re calling early tonight. No late night at the office?”

Steve laughs softly. His hand rests on his belly, his thumb idly scratching over his belly button. “Thought maybe it might be good form to be awake this time.”

“You’re my most thoughtful client, Steve.” 

Steve’s heart drops a little and he has to remind himself, sternly and with small words, that Yakov is providing him with a service. 

“C’mon, big boy. What’s eating you?”

Idly, Steve wonders how long Yakov has been in the States and then he realises that Yakov may not even be on this side of the Atlantic. “Long week,” he says. Steve knows he’s a bad liar. “What are you wearing?”

“Oh, straight to business tonight. That’s cool. I’m cool with that.” Yakov must have a great smile, Steve thinks. It stretches out his words so that they smile too. “I’m wearing a Fighting Irish t-shirt and a pair of shorts.”

“You didn’t even dress up for me?” asks Steve, mock-indignantly.

“I will when you start taking me to nice places, baby,” says Yakov. His voice is breathy. “I’ve got my hand in my shorts now. Seriously, thirty seconds on a call with you and I’m so hard.”

Steve. Well, yes, Steve blushes but he looks down his body. The front of his sleep pants is tented and it’s nothing to slide his hand under his waistband. 

“Are you hard, Steve?” asks Yakov. 

Steve swallows, with an audible click in his throat. “Yes,” he says. He reaches to the side and half-juggles a tube of lube onto the bed, fingers shaking as he unscrews the cap. “Yes, oh god-”

“Feels good, doesn’t it? Feels so good.” Yakov sounds breathless. “I’m so hard for you, Steve. You should see my cock. Oh - I wish. I wish I could see yours. Wish I could taste it. Would you - oh- would you like that, Steve?”

Steve bites down hard on his lip and screws his eyes shut and he can’t help picturing a pair of full, pouting lips, wrapped around him, all heat and slick and wet. 

.

“Well?”

“Tony, no. Just. Stop asking.”

“Have you seen that kid Darcy’s rack?”

“ _Oh my god_ , Tony. You can’t talk about young ladies like that.”

“Oh thank fuck. I was worried that you’d been replaced by a pod person. Phone sex today, loose morals tomorrow. By the end of the week, you might be flashing some ankle and then where’ll we be?”

.

“You keep falling asleep on me, I’m gonna get a complex, Steve.”

Steve laughs. It’s a lazy, comfortable laugh and his thighs and his stomach are sticky but he can’t bring himself to care. “It’s a compliment, I swear.”

“Sure. Did you catch the game last night?”

“I was at it. My friend got tickets.”

“Ah, your friend.” Yakov pauses. “You guys gonna fuck already or what?”

This time, when Steve drops the phone, it’s honest shock. He manages to pick it up again. “Okay, no. Seriously, we’re not. No. Anyway, I think he’s engaged.”

Yakov laughs. “Okay, I’m sorry. I take it back. Maybe I’m a little jealous, jeez.”

Steve feels warm inside and it’s not the coiling-uncoiling fire in the pit of his belly that he normally associates with Yakov. 

“I’d take you someplace nicer than Citi Field,” he says and he hopes that his tone is light enough to pass for humour.

“I’d let you take me,” says Yakov. 

.

“Captain Rogers, can you explain to me how you’ve maxed out an elite credit card? Accounts says they can’t make sense of these charges. I asked them why they can’t and they said. Well. They said, ‘Director Fury, sir, it looks like Captain America’s been calling a phone sex line every night for the past twenty-three days'.”

.

“We - we have to meet, Yakov. I can’t afford - Christ, this is embarrassing.”

“No more embarrassing than dialing my number in the first place, big boy.”

They arrange to meet in a Starbucks. Tony wants to put a wire on Steve. He says meeting in a Starbucks is okay because if something happens and they need to extract Steve, well. There’s gonna be another Starbucks down the street.

.

Steve sits in one of the comfy chairs by the window. 

Bucky walks through the door.

It’s hard to tell who goes paler. 

“Y-Yakov?” asks Steve. 

“Guy’s gotta make a living, Steve. Oh _god_. When you said what your date of birth was, and your name, I figured you were just some die-hard Captain America fan but I wasn't gonna hold that against you.”

.

“What’s with the accent, Buck?”

Bucky grins. “Soviet brainwashing? Guys with accents get more clients and my Irish accent is _shit_.” 

Steve rubs his temples. “What on earth-? You died.” He doesn’t mean to sound accusing when Bucky Barnes being alive is the absolute greatest thing ever to happen. “You _fell_.”

“I did.” Bucky’s expression closes down. “I fell a long fucking way, pal. I lost a lot, gained a bit. Met a guy with the sexiest phone voice.”

Steve blushes crimson and he knows that Bucky’s delighted to get a rise out of him. (He’s already gotten a rise out of Steve.)

Steve sits back. “So. You. You’re an assassin who what? Does phone sex on the side?”

Bucky shrugs. “I was defunct or I got lost in the mail or _something_. I woke up in a homeless shelter in Queens about a year ago. Got to work, you know. Kept a low profile. Didn’t want those Department X fucks finding me.”

“So you became a - a what? A phone sex worker?”

Bucky holds up one finger. “Don’t you dare try shaming me, Steve Rogers.”

Steve’s jaw drops and he shakes his head. “No, no, it’s not that. It’s just. Why didn’t you go to SHIELD or someone?”

“What and invite someone else to scramble up my brains? No, thank you.”

Steve looks down at his latte. “So. You still wanna come to a Mets game with me?”

.

As it turns out, Nick Fury forgets all about Steve’s credit card bill. The last known location of the operative formerly known as the Winter Soldier comes cheap at the price.

**Author's Note:**

> +Beardsley is 1000% to blame for this but I'm also blaming the entirety of Tumblr for enabling me and I'm thanking Dani and Erin for encouraging this abject silliness.  
> +Title from Divinls' _I Touch Myself_ because, really, nothing else would do.


End file.
